While I think you'd be better off doing Kyokushin or Judo from the start, if your school has you doing rigorous warmups instead of siu nim tao and grabbing people with a bottom-three finger judo-style grip, I dare say you could be doing a lot worse. Check in on the advanced training room and ask the other guys to see if there's any sparring to be done, and if there is you hit it lucky.